



Armtstesd 




Class _3?j5_3-5__. 
Book_Jl_5lAij 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 



N 



FOR TRUTH 
AND FREEDOM 

Poems of Commemoration 

BY 
ARMISTEAD C. GORDON 

RECTOR, UNIVERSITY VIRGINIA; AUTHOR, THE IVORY 

GATE," "ROBIN AROON," AND " WILLIAM FITZ- 

HUGH GORDON '. HIS LIFE, TIMES AND 

:MPOR ARIES," AL 

LISHED BY THIS 

HOUSE 




New York and Washington 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1910 









Copyright, 1910, By 
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 



First published in December of 1910 



CCU278763 



A limited edition of two hundred copies of this 
book, containing five of the ten poems now in- 
cluded in it, was published in 1898, and has long 
been out of print. 



TO 

LIEUT.-COLONEL RAWLEY W. MAETIN 

of the 53rd virginia regiment, who led 

the confederate line over the stone 

wall in pickett's charge at 

gettysburg, july 3, 1863. 



To him who through the summer sunshine led, 

As to a bridal, an immortal line 
Up those wild heights, — whose feet were first to 
tread 

The wine-press of that passion; — a divine 

And dazzling glory that shall deathless shine 
Across the years for those whos& spirits stir, 

What time they see in memory Armistead 
With hat on sabre leap the wall, and hear 

The cannons thunderous roar drowned in the 
charging cheer. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Garden op Death 15 

Eoses of Memory 21 

"Pro Monumento" 27 

The Fostering Mother 35 

Mosby's Men 43 

Vitai Lampada 49 

The Stonewall Brigade 57 

For a Soldier 61 

New Market: A Threnody 65 

Lost Causes: I/Envoi 73 



THE GAKDEN OF DEATH 

" The grief that circled his brows with a crown 
of thorns was also that which wreathed them with 
the splendor of immortality/' 

Savonarola. 



Read at the unveiling of the Confederate 
Monument in Thornrose Cemetery, Staunton, 
Virginia, September 25. 1888. 



THE GARDEN OF DEATH 
I 

Where are they who marched away, 

Sped with smiles that changed to tears,- 

Glittering lines of steel and gray 

Moving down the battle's way — 
Where are they these many years? 

Garlands wreathed their shining swords; 

They were girt about with cheers, 
Children's lispings, women's words, 
Sunshine and the songs of birds. — 

They are gone so many years. 

"Lo! beyond their brave array 

Freedom's august dawn appears : " 
Thus we said: "The brighter day 
Breaks above that line of gray." — 
Where are they these many years? 

All our hearts went with them there, 
All our love, and all our prayers. 

What of them ? How do they fare, — 

They who went to do and dare, 
And are gone so many years? 

15 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

What of them who went away, 

Followed by our hopes and fears? 
Braver never marched than they, 
Closer ranks to fiercer fray. — 
Where are they these many years? 



II 



Borne upon the Spartan shield, 

Home returned that brave array 
From the blood-stained battle-field 
They might neither win nor yield. 
That is all, and here are they. 

That is all. The soft sky bends 

O'er them, lapped in earth away; 
Her benignest influence lends, — 
Dews and rains and radiance sends 
Down upon them, night and day. 

Over them the Springtide weaves 

All the verdure of her May; 
Past them drift the sombre leaves, 
When the heart of Autumn grieves 
O'er their slumbers. — What care they? 

What care they, who failed to win 
Guerdon of that splendid day — 

16 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

Freedom's day — they saw begin, 
But that, 'mid the battle's din, 
Faded in eclipse away? 

All is gone for them. They gave 

All for naught. It was their way 
Where they loved. They died to save 
What was lost. The fight was brave. 
That is all; and here are they. 

Ill 

—Is that all? Was Duty naught? 

Love, and Faith made blind with tears? 
What the lessons that they taught? 
What the glory that they caught 

From the onward sweeping years? 

Here are they who marched away 
Followed by our hopes and fears; 

Nobler never went than they 

To a bloodier, madder fray, 
In the lapse of all the years. 

Garlands still shall wreathe the swords 

That they drew amid our cheers: 
Children's lispings, women's words, 
Sunshine, and the songs of birds 

Greet them here through all the years. 

17 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

With them ever shall abide 

All our love and all our prayers. 
—"What of them?" The battle's tide 
Hath not scathed them. Lo! they ride 
Still with Stuart down the years. 

"Where are they who went away, 

Sped with smiles that changed to tears? 
— Lee yet leads the lines of gray, — 
Stonewall still rides down this way. 
They are Fame's through all the years! 



18 



ROSES OF MEMORY 

" On every ragged gray cap the Lord God Al- 
mighty laid the sword of His imperishable knight- 
hood." 

Henry Woodfin Grady. 



Read before the Pickett-Buchanan Camp of 
Confederate Veterans, at Norfolk, Virginia, on 
Memorial Day, June 19, 1890. 



EOSES OF MEMORY 

A rose's crimson stain — 

A rose's stainless white — 
Fitly become the immortal slain 
Who fell in the great fight. 

When Armistead died amid his foes, 

Girt by the rebel cheer, 
God plucked a soul like a white rose, 
In June time o' the year. 

The blood in Pickett's heart 

Was of a ruddier hue 
Than the reddest bloom whose petals part 
To welcome heaven's dew. 

I think the fairest flowers that blow 
Should greet the life-stream shed 
In that historic long ago 
By this historic dead. 

The immemorial years 

Such valor never knew, 
As poured a flood of crimson blood 
At Gettysburg with you. 

Living and dead, in faith the same, 

I see you on that height, 
Crowned with the rosy wreath of fame, 
Won in the fatal fight. 

21 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

Not these had made afraid 

King Arthur's mystic sword — 
Not Bayard's most chivalric blade, 
Nor Gideon's, for the Lord. 

Yours was the strain of high emprise, 

Yours the unfaltering faith, — 
The honor lofty as the skies, 
The duty strong as death. 



When Douglas flung the heart 

Of Bruce amid his foes, 
And said : " He leads. We do not part : 
I follow where he goes" ; 

No mightier impulse stirred his soul 

Than that which up yon height 
Moved you with Pickett toward the goal 
Of freedom in that fight. 



The fair goal was not won, 

The famous fight was lost; 
But never shone the allseeing sun 
On more heroic host. 
Your deeds of mighty prowess shame 
All deeds of derring-do 
With which Time's bloody pages flame. 
— Hail and farewell to you! 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

Unto the dead farewell! 

They are hid in the dark and cold; 
And the broken shaft and the roses tell 
What is left of the tale untold. 

They are deaf to the martial music's call 

Till a judgment dawn shall break, 
When the trumpet of Truth shall proclaim 
to all: 
" They perished for my sake ! " 

Let them be quiet here 

Where birds and blossoms be; — 
And hail to you, who bring the tear 
And the rose of memory 

To water and deck each lowly grave 

Of those, who in God's sight 
With loyal hearts their hearts' blood gave 
For the eternal right! 

Alike for low and high 

The roses white and red: 
For valor and honor cannot die, — 
And they were of these dead. 

The private in his jacket of gray, 
And the general with his star, 
The Lord God knighted alike that day, 
In the red front of War. 



"PRO MONUMENTO SUPER MILITES 
INTEREMPTOS » 

" Gladly we should rest ever, had we won 
Freedom: we have lost, and very gladly rest." 
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 



Bead at the unveiling of the Monument to the 
Private Soldiers and Sailors of the Confederacy 
at Richmond, Virginia, May 30, 1894. 



"PEO MONUMENTO " 

Since that spring morning when the first dread 
gun 
Boomed o'er the harbor of the seaport town, 
Fired by Virginia's lion-hearted son 

Who would not live to see his flag go down, 
Long years have passed away, — 
Youth's gold has turned to gray; 
The old men fade and die; the young age day by 
day. 

But ere pale Death shall stand with equal feet 

Hard by each door — the door of old or young, — 
That glory can be wrested from defeat 
Let an " lo Triumphe!" here be sung, 
Yielding the meed of praise — 
Of laurels and green bays — 
To young and old alike who fought in those lost 
days. 

Brighter than any born of time or fate — 
More beautiful than e'er beheld of men — 

Fronting the nations stood the fair young State, 
And "Babel" was the splendid badge again 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM . 

Worn by the sons of those 
Whom Freedom's feudal foes 
Had learned to bow before when Washington 
arose. 

They gathered round her beautiful bright form, 

With glittering bayonets fixed to ready guns, 
Stirred by that passion Liberty keeps warm 
In every pulse of all her patriot sons, 
Offering upon her shrine 
The sacrifice divine 
Of Love; and each man swore, "Her holy cause 
is mine! " 

Her cause was theirs and Freedom's. For such 
cause 
Men have died gladly since that ancient day 
When the Three Hundred gave a Myriad pause 
For Grecian freedom at Thermopylae. 
These drew the Spartan sword ; 
These knew the Spartan word: — 
" With it, or on it ! " These the Spartan spirit 
stirred. 

On the most glowing page of human story 
Are writ in lines of light their deathless names. 

Our heritage is their eternal glory, — 

Their record, of undying deeds is Fame's. 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

The immemorial roll 
Of her resplendent scroll 
Their honor and their valor shall extol. 

O'er that first field, made red with their first 
blood, 
Rang through the tumult as a bugle-call 
His kingly voice, who royally bestowed 

On Jackson's soldiers " standing like a wall " 
The battle-accolade, — 
Knighting the great Brigade, 
And him who at its head had drawn his sword 
and prayed. 

Booted and spurred, his troopers riding ever 

Ready for the fierce fray, entwined around 
His brows the laurel-leaves that made forever 
Thenceforth the name of Stuart glory-crowned : 
They followed where he led ; 
They conquered where he bled; 
Gladly had each one died in the lost leader's 
stead. 

Can you not hear booming across the years 
The thunderous echoes of young Pelham's 
guns? 
There went to war than her red cannoneers 
None higher-hearted of the South's true sons. 
29 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

Whatever else betide, 
Down the dim years they ride, 
Who joyous rode to death as bridegroom to his 
bride. 

Beyond the vast of time we can descry- 
In memory the white foam and the sweep 
Of the great ram, Virginia; and on high 

The Southern pennant fluttering o'er the deep ; 
And hear the sullen roar 
Of the grim guns she bore 
Proclaiming Freedom's fight from listening shore 
to shore. 

In many a battle on the wandering wave 

The sailors whom this shaft commemorates 
Wrote high on Glory's record that the brave 
Who fall for Freedom sleep at Freedom's gates; 
That after life lived free, 
Life lost for Liberty 
Is God's most gracious gift that hath been or 
shall be. 

For Freedom ! aye ! for Freedom ! 'Twas this hope 
That sent the steady, steel-tipped line of gray, 
Fringed with hell's fires, up the steep slippery 
slope 
Of Gettysburg, on that most fateful day 
30 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

That found our pathway crossed 
By an outnumbering host; — 
That witnessed high hopes flown; that saw the 
dear Cause lost. 

Unfaltering in their grave fidelity, — 

Steadfast in purpose to the bitter end, — 
They closed thin ranks, and set brave eyes to see 
And dauntless hearts to bear what Fate should 
send ; — 
Not looking vainly back 
Along the traversed track, — 
But facing War's last blast, its hurricane and 
wrack. 

When came the bitter end, the bugle blew 

Its last sad note, that brought the blinding tears 
Down wasted cheeks from eyes that only knew 
Honor and Death through all the weary years. 
The long hard fight was done; 
Silenced was every gun; 
And what we lost, e'en now they do not dream, 
who won. 

Let not the worth of any such be weighed 
By battle's balance. They who glorified 

Their righteous cause and lived, and they who 
made 
The sacrifice supreme, in that they died 

31 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

To keep their country free, 
Alike gave men to see 
What hero-hearts were theirs who thus loved 
Liberty ! 

They did their duty in the leal fearless fashion 
Of antique knighthood's flower, each man a 
knight, — 
Careless if Death, dividing peace from passion, 
Whispering, should greet them in the roar of 
fight,— 
Or Life to ceaseless pain 
Should lead them! forth again; 
Knowing that duty done is never done in vain. 

Time shall not dim their memory. The web 

The spider weaves may hang across the mouth 
Of the dismantled cannon; and the ebb 
And flow of erstwhile battle in the South 
Be but the shadowy gleam 
Of a long vanished dream; 
But ever over all this shaft shall loom supreme, 

Silently telling in majestic beauty 

Through all the years the story of their faith, — 
Their love of Truth, of Freedom and of Duty — 
Transcendent Love, triumphant over Death. 
Harm now can reach them never: 
Their fame is sure forever 
While stands the sacred Hill, or flows the shining 
River. ^ 



THE FOSTERING MOTHER 

"And ye shall know the Truth and the Truth 
shall make you free." — John viii. 32. 



K«ad June 14, 1898, at the dedication of the 
new buildings of the University of Virginia, re- 
placing those destroyed by fire October 27, 1895. 



THE FOSTERING MOTHER 

The dawn of summer breaks in beauty o'er her, 
Crowned Queen, and seated on her throne once 
more; 
Gather again her children to adore her, — 
To hail her soul-compelling as of yore, — 
Where she sits girdled with an olden glory, 

Turning the latest page of her illumined 
story : — 

An open book that he who runs may read, — 
Annals of patience, courage, sacrifice, 

Blazoned with lofty thought and splendid deed, 
Science and song and battle's great emprise; 

Scroll of the intellect's majestic sway; 

Scripture of hope and faith that shall not fade 
away. 

One name, before which none in all time ever 
Hath been or shall be, shining there is writ: — 

Worker of Revolutions, mighty giver 

Of Freedom's Charter, and the Voice of it. 

When kingdoms shake, and iron empires fall, 
Through multitudinous time shall ring the 
clarion call 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

Of the eternal lesson that he taught: — 
* The gift of God is Freedom." Never gift, 

Tn all the ages with His promise fraught, 
Hath been bestowed like this one to uplift 

Mortality to godhood, and to light 

Man's pathway through the years till Time be 
put to flight. 

It is the gift of God. Philosophy 

Might not devise it; art might never limn 

Its beauty; in the realm of poesy 

It were undreamed of, were it not of Him. 

Science, whose feet are with the lightnings shod, 
Had never found it; for it is the gift of God. 

And when the nations arm them for the fray 
With hearts of fire and force of triple steel, 
To test the durance on some fateful day 

Of Tyranny or Freedom, they shall feel — 
Whether on blood-drenched sod or wandering 
wave, — ■ 
The conquest theirs who know its sovereign 
strength to save. 

Let us rejoice, then, that upon her scroll, — 

Whereon our Mother reads the unfettered creed, 
The sacrificial courage of the soul, 

36 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 



The untrammeled thought that works the 
deathless deed, — 
Is written first, to last through latest years, 
This gift of God, though gained with immemo- 
rial tears. 

Teaching the lesson of that morning Voice 
To all her children, peace encompassed her, 

Till dawned a day in springtime, when the choice : 
" Death or Dishonor ! " made her pulses stir 

In scorn of life dishonored. " For the truth 
Go forth and die ! " she said to her immortal 
youth. 

The drum beat, and they answered. As they 
stood 
In the forefront of war, a sacred band, 
And poured the red libation of their blood 

At Freedom's altar for their native land, 
The stricken Mother wrote in words of flame: — 
" For Truth's most holy cause," o'er each re- 
splendent name. 

For Truth and Freedom ! Not the nameless 
dead, 
Who through the centuries by the Grecian sea 
Sleep in the narrow pass they kept, shall shed 
37 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

A nobler lustre upon Liberty, 
Than these heroic hearts to whom she taught 
That Spartan fortitude is born of Spartan 
thought. 

Fronting defeat, she heard the drumbeat cease, — 
She heard the cannonading die away. — 

Counting her graves beneath the star of peace, 
With her dumb memories of that ended day 

Sacred to Freedom, glorified by death, 

She turned her holiest page in more exalted 
faith. 

" In storm or sunshine this one thing is sure, 

And shall be, through His everlasting years: — 
The gift of God is destined to endure," — 

So wrote she, "though ye take it e'en with 
tears, 
Heartbreak and agony and bloody sweat. 

They who have loved it once have never lost it 
yet." 

It is her lesson still. Her slain sons sleeping 
A last long sleep, their battles all forgot, — 
Whom neither love nor prayers, nor any weeping 
Might bring back to the land where they are 
not, — ■ 
Speak from the grave the message of their gain, 
That they are likewise free who slumber with 
the slain. 

38 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

It is the lesson still that to the living, 

Who gather 'neath her mantle's ample fold, 

She gives as one most worthy of her giving, — 
Better than fame, and finer far than gold: — 

The gift of God, that hath been and shall be, 
To know the eternal Truth, and knowing, to 
be free. 

Freedom of thought, word, deed, — the wider 
scope, 
The nobler sense, the keener, deeper sight, 
The truer aim, the holier, higher hope, 

The more abundant strength, the loftier light, — 
All these are written fair for him to read 

Upon her open page, who learns her larger 
creed. 

" The gift of God is Freedom." To the end 

God grant it be the lesson she shall teach, 
Until its echoes, circling earth, shall blend 

In one deep chorus of thought, deed and 
speech, — 
When all the peoples upon land or sea 

Shall know the Truth at last, and it shall make 
them free. 



39 



MOSBY'S MEN" 

" Honeur fleurit sur la fosse/' 

Old French Saw. 



Head at the Seventh Annual Reunion of the 
survivors of the Forty-third Battalion, Virginia 
Cavalry, Mosby's Men, at Fairfax Court House, 
Virginia, September 11, 1900. 



MOSBY'S MEN 

They tell the tale, with magic word 

The spirit's depths to stir, 
Of him who fought with Sidney's sword, 

Or rode with Percy's spur; 
For Honor bourgeons from the mould 

And blossoms from the dust, 
Though Percy's shining spur be cold, 

And Sidney's sword be rust. 

In a yet unforgotten day, 

When hearts and hopes were high, 
A little band rode down this way 

Whose fame will never die. 
Their cause was right, their blades were bright, 

And Honor shone again, 
A cloud by day, a fire by night, 

To beckon Mosby's Men. 

The wilderness their secret kept, — 

They bivouacked 'neath the blue; 
The tents they spread — the sleep they slept— 

The foeman never knew. 
No bugle blast nor tuck of drum 

Proclaimed their headlong fight ; 
— The startled picket saw them come, 

And perished with the sight. 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

They came as lightnings come; they went 

As swift the west- winds blow; 
And blood ran red and life was spent 

Where'er they met the foe. 
They buckled to the deadly fray 

Where they were one to ten. 
— He spurred and drew to die or slay, 

Who rode with Mosby's Men. 



They carried on their sabres there 

The fortunes of the Truth; 
The breath they breathed was Freedom's air, 

In their immortal youth. 
It boots not if the unequal fight 

Was lost, though fierce and long : 
— 'Tis written that eternal right 

Can never be made wrong. 

Down the dim years, long gone, once more 

Appears that phantom band; 
I hear the clanging charge of yore, — 

I see a war-rent land. 
The vision of the desperate strife 

Returns through mists again. 
— Those were the bravest days of life, 

The days of Mosby's Men. 

44 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

The bravest days of all that shine 

Through immemorial years ; 
Days of life's sacrificial wine, 

Of Love's divinest tears; 
When Valor guarded all the land, — 

When hearts and hopes were high, — 
And Love and Death went hand in hand 

With Faith, that could not die. 



— But Harry Percy's spur is cold, 

And Sidney's sword is rust; 
And many a lad, who rode of old 

With that gay band, is dust. 
While those, bereft, who linger yet, 

Are wearier now than then: — 
— What matter? They cannot forget 

That they were Mosby's Men; — 

- — That they were Mosby's Men, and rode, 

As soldiers love to ride, 
Where the red stream of battle flowed 

With its most swelling tide. 
— No other stream may run so red, — 

ISTo higher tide may flow, — 
Till God shall wake the dreamless dead, 

When the last trumpets blow. 

45 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

— The circling seasons come and go, 

Springs dawn, and autumns set; 
And winter with its drifted snow 

Repays the summer's debt; 
And song of bird and tint of bloom 

Are gay and bright, as when 
Those gallant lads rode to their doom, 

Long since, with Mosby's Men. 

But winter wears a sadder guise, 

And ghastlier for its snow, 
To him who looks with time-worn eyes 

On scenes of long ago; 
And neither autumn's glow, nor spring, 

Nor summer's emerald sod 
To hearts grown old again may bring 

The dead who sleep with God. 

It is His will. The sword may rust 

That battles for the right; — 
The banner may be trailed in dust 

That leads the holiest fight; — 
And Wrong may wear the victor's name, 

Where one shall strive with ten ; — 
But fate can never take from fame 

The deeds of Mosby's Men. 



46 



VITAI LAMPADA 

A SONG FOR A CENTENARY YEAR 

Et quasi cursores vittii lampada tradunt." 
Lucretius, " De Natura Rerum," %%. 77. 



Read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of 
William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Vir- 
ginia, February 19, 1901. 



VITAI LAMPADA 

A SONG FOR A CENTENARY TEAR 

Unto the year of liberty 

He kept the gift his master gave, 
Who wore the shackles of the slave; 

But when death's hand had set him free, 
He lost it in the grave. 1 

No child of his might hope to reap 

The harvest where his hand had sown; 
No vassal, where the high sun shone 

On earth, his father's field might keep 
Unhindered as his own. 

Old forces of the fettered earth- 
Sultan and emperor and king, — 
Scorned the poor, patient, plodding thing 

That crawled and crept to death from birth,— 
For whom death had no sting. 

Through circling centuries the years 
Were born and withered into dust; 
And power still wrenched from hopes august 

The fruits of immemorial tears 
In rapine and in lust. 

lEzekiel, 46:17. 

49 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

And then there came the voice of One 
Crying amid the wilderness, 
Like John's, above that dumb distress: 

" The day dawns. An all-golden sun 
Kises, the world to bless! 

" For her it makes the pathway clear 

Who bends no knee and knows no rod, — 
Who, springing from War's bloody sod, 

Yet bears' what men shall hold most dear : — 
The perfect peace of God. 

" Her name is Freedom ; and her home, 
Upbuilded here by patriot hands, 
The opprest shall hail from alien lands, 

Where tyrants bind beyond the foam 
The soul with iron bands." 

And ancient and immortal hope 

Eeturned — the hope that men had had, 
And lost — what time that clear voice bade 

The long-locked gates of morning ope, — 
The enlightened world be glad. 

And in that dawn of liberty 

They saw how good the gift God gave, — 
The brave gift given to the brave, — 

The free gift given for the free, — 
His gift, that true men crave. 

50 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

They took the gift in scorn of those 

Who bowed the head and crooked the knee, — 
Who, blind and sordid, would not see; — 

And held, against embattled foes, 
The guerdon of the free. 

They toiled and wrought in faith and hope, 
And reared and builded, large and strong, 
A Temple, where the opprest might throng, — 

A house, from corner-stone to cope 
Buttressed against the wrong. 

And dwelling 'neath serener skies 

They lived with Truth and Peace and Right; 

While fled from that etherial light 
The fading wrongs and groping lies 

That battened on the night. 

Love, fraught with knowledge, handed down 
The hallowed boon from sire to son. 
— Who saw their handiwork well done, 

And slept, foresaw the centuries crown 
The work their hands begun. 

The freedom of the unshackled man 

Inspired the order of the state; 

Peace, smiling, sat within the gate; 
And where Love's perfect purpose ran, 

Hope held no fear of Fate. 

51 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

And then dark winds arose, and drave 
Dun clouds across a sullen sky. 
The Temple's veil was rent. A cry 

Above the tumult rang: "We save 
The gift of God, or die ! " 

And hearkening, as their sires of old 

Who heard that earlier trumpet call, 
They answered from the outer wall: 

" We pledge our richer things than gold, — 
Our lives, our loves, our all ! " 

Their heads are grizzled now, who drew 
The mother's milk that day, when War 
Rose on the horizon like a star 

To kindle hope; — when Freedom grew 
So near that was so far. 

And clouds have lowered and fled; and suns 
Have shone; strange faces intervene; 
The blood-stained grass is ever green; 

And only in our dreams the guns 
Peal, and the flag is seen. 

In all the wars of all the world 

That men have known on land or sea, 
Where Hope hath welcomed Liberty, 

"No fairer flag was e'er unfurled 
Than this, to lead the free. 

52 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

No belted knight, who in his grave 

Hath long since crumbled into dust, 
E'er drew a blade in cause more just; 

Nor hero fought a fight more brave, — 
A battle more august. 

Far off the bayonets mix and gleam, 
The tides of conflict ebb and flow; 
The shotted guns of long ago 

Boom faint and far; as in a dream 
The battle-bugles blow. 

Though but in dreams they gather yet, — 
If but in dreams their faces shine, — 
God keep for us those dreams divine, 

That we through life may not forget 
To love the thin gray line. 

•— u Here rest who for their country died, 
And with it: they are fallen on sleep," 
The Roman wrote. — But we? We keep 

The ancient altars lit beside 

The graves of those we weep. 

There flames the fire that shall not wane, 
Caught from the torch that ever burns; 
And thence celestial Hope returns, 

That, dying, springs to life again 
From our funereal urns. 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 



And this the litany we pray: 

That God who made may keep us free ; 

That storms may vex no more the sea, 
Where, brooding 'neath a cloudless day, 

Still sits Alcyone. 



54 



THE STONEWALL BRIGADE 

We shall find our lost youth when the bugle is 
blown/' 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson. 



Eead at the Beunion of the survivors of the 
Stonewall Brigade, at Staunton, Virginia, Octo- 
ber 16, 1901. 



THE STONEWALL BRIGADE 

They come again, who in immortal story, 

Past failure, death and tears, 
Bore their unfading banner to its glory 

Through the laborious years. 

The frost is in their veins; the feet are laggard, 

That sped to meet the foe; — 
Yet shines on every face, however haggard, 

The light of long ago. 

For each the peaceful years have vanished, seeing 

His comrades marching there. 
Once more they live and move and have their 
being 

In a diviner air. 

And shaking off the pulseless, feeble fashion 

Of this degenerate day, 
They thrill again with the heroic passion 

Of Stonewall Jackson's Way. 

— What boots it, though the fight was lost? 
— They fought it 
As soldiers should: — That youth 

57 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

Passed with it, and was lost too? Lo! these 
thought it 
Well spent, since for the Truth. 

They march with ghosts of comrades, dead and 
gory,— 
Down the autumnal years 
Still bearing that rent banner, starred with 
glory, 
Past failure, death and tears. 

Lost Cause ! Lost Youth ! — Nay, out of War's red 
sowing 
Hath sprung the harvest grain: 
Their cause is Fame's; and the old bugles, 
blowing, 
Bring back their youth again. 



58 



FOR A SOLDIER 

/ home fought a good fight; 
I have kept the faith/' 



Harry C. Tinsley, Eichmond Howitzers, C. S. A., 
1861-1865. Died Aug. 21, 1902. 



FOR A SOLDIER 

Not 'mid the din of battle long ago, 

But in the lingering clutch of later pain 
Death found him, whom we shall not see 
again 

Lifting a fearless front to every foe. 

Yet shall suns somewhere shine for him, and blow 
The lilies and the roses without stain, 
Who, through the lengthened years, in heart 
and brain 

Knew most of storm and winter with its snow. 

For it is written in the starry sky, — 

In the vast spaces and the silences, — 
That God's eternal universe is his 

Who fears not, though he live or if he die. 

— A soldier to the dauntless end was he, 
As riding with his red artillery. 



61 



NEW MARKET 

A THRENODY 

" Theirs were not souls wherein dull Time 
Could domicile decay^ or house 

Decrepitude! 
They passed from earth ere manhood's prime, 
Ere years had power to dim their brows, 

Or chill their blood." 
James Clarence Mangan, "The Princess of 
Tir-, Owen and Tir-Connell." 



Eead June 23, 1903, at the dedication of Sir 
Moses Ezekiel's Monument to the memory of the 
Cadets of the Virginia Military Institute who 
fell in the battle of New Market, Va., May 15, 
1864. 



NEW MAKKET 

How shall the eternal fame of them be told, 
Who, dying in the heyday of life's morn, 

Thrust from their lips the chalice of bright gold 
Filled to the brim with joy, and went forlorn 

Into the abysmal darkness of that bourn, 

Whence they who thither go may nevermore 
return ? 

The circling seasons pass in old progression 

Of beauty and of immortality; 
The ancient stars march on in far procession, 
And immemorial winds sweep o'er the sea; 
The mountains drop their wine; the flowers 

bloom ; 
While these, who should have lived, sleep in an 
early tomb. 

No blight had touched the garlands that they 
wore, 
Dewy and fresh with innocence and ruth; 
No dead illusions or spent glamours bore 

With heaviness upon them. Their gay youth 
Caught but the bubbles on the beaker's brim, 
Nor e'er beheld life's lees with eyes grown old 
and dim. 

65 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

Were they in love with death's forgetfulness, 
Thus to lie down with the enduring dead? 

Had wood and stream lost all their loveliness, 
Or morning's sunshine faded overhead, 

That they sought surcease of life's sorrows there, — 

Leaving wan Love to weep o'er boyhood's sunny 
hair? 

All the old questionings rise to our lips 
In the sad contemplation of Youth slain: 

Life's hidden meaning, and Death's dark eclipse, — 
The passion and the pathos and the pain; — 

The unanswering answer that the wisest reads 

In the grim mystery that hangs behind the 
creeds. 

And yet — and yet — we old, whose heads are 
gray, 
Whose hearts are heavy, and whose steps are 
slow 
With journeying on this rough and thorny way, — 
We, who live after them, — what may we know 
Of their ecstatic rapture thus to have died, — 
The marvellous, sleepless souls that perished in 
their pride? 

If the worn hearts and weary fall on sleep 
With a deep longing for its sweet repose, 

66 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 



Shall not they, likewise, whom the high Gods 

keep, 
Die, while yet bloom the lily and the rose? 
To each man living comes a day to die : — 
What better day, than when Truth calls to 

Liberty ? 

Writ in the rocks, the world's primeval page 
Is old past human skill to interpret it, 

Save where it speaks to grief of man's gray age, 
And with the end of all things is o'erwrit: — 

All things save one, that hath unfading youth 

And strength and power and beauty, — clear- 
eyed Truth. 

On mountain top — in valley — by the sea, — 
Wherever sleep the patriots who have died 

In her high honor, — at Thermopylae, — 

At Bannockburn, — or where great rivers glide 

To the wide ocean bordering our own shore, 

Truth sees the holy face of Freedom evermore! 

The blood-stained face of Freedom, that hath 
wrought 
For man a magic and a mystery : 
Whose bright blade, e'en when broken, yet hath 
bought 
A grave with the eternal for the free. 

67 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

— Freedom and Truth, — these went beside them 

there, 
Marching to deathless death, forever young and 

fair. 

— " Send the Cadets in, — and may God forgive ! " 
— Who spake the words had welcomed rather 
death. 
But Truth dies not, and Liberty shall live, 

E'en though Youth wither in the cannon's 
breath. 
— And at the order, debonair and gay, 
They moved into the front of an immortal day. 

" Battalion forward ! " rang the sharp command ; 

" Guide centre ! " and the banner was unfurled. 
Then, as if on parade, the little band 

Dressed to the flag. A sad and sombre world 
Thrills with the memory of how they went 
Into that raging storm of fire and carnage blent. 

A worn and weary world in sorrow weeps 

For high hopes vanished at life's sunny morn; 
— Yet Truth, with eyes that never falter, keeps 
Her gaze on Freedom's face, that smiles in 
scorn 
Of death for them who wear the laurelled 

crown, — 
The early dead, who died with an achieved 
renown. 

68 



FOR TRUTH AND FREEDOM 

Creeds fade; faiths perish; empires rise and fall; 

And as the shining sun goes on his way, 
Oblivion covers with a dusty pall 

The life of man, predestined to decay. 
— Yet is there one thing that shall never die: 
The memory of the Dead for Truth and Liberty. 



LOST CAUSES 
(I/Envoi.) 

They never fail, who die in a great cause" 
Byron: "Marino Faliero" Act II, 8c. 2. 



LOST CAUSES 
(L'Envoi) 

Cause of the Freed Souls, tempest-tossed, 
Who passed in battle, and whose names 
Are Glory's own — thy splendor flames 

Beyond the stars! No cause is Lost 
Whose dead are Love's and Fame's. 



73 



31 l?*m 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



• 



